Rare Masterpieces Unveiled: Nicolae Grigorescu’s Breathtaking Scenes on Furniture at Artmark’s Exclusive Auction

In the current selection of decorative objects, the old meets the new in a style statement that can give any home a special personality. Armenian or Persian carpets, Japanese prints, African masks, French interiors, Italian Renaissance, but also impressive Coromandel screenin laque de Chine, decorated with semi-precious stones and mother-of-pearl and ivory inlays, dating from the Qing Dynasty (China, late 19th century). Here are a few of the titles in the new auction catalog (scheduled for next Tuesday, October 1st).

I return to attention again pieces from the collection of the famous singer Maria Tănase, this time decorative art objects, such as a Romanian cocktail containera Biedermeier teapot times a soliflora decorated with floral motifs. All pieces come from the direct heir of the artist and are accompanied by documents attesting to their authenticity.

They attract the attention of refined Asian collectors, but also new generations of enthusiasts, and some Japanese comics – the famous mangahistorical, from the Edo period, such as those belonging to the well-known stamp author Katsushika Hokusai, but also, in a more recent note, and a pair of Louis Vuitton suitcasesfor travel, from the ʾ50s.

We also present in particular a a pair of cabinets whose doors have integrated painted panels, possibly by Nicolae Grigorescu, made at the beginning of the century. the twentieth. The furniture objects come from the historical collection of the scholar Constantin I. Istrati – doctor of chemistry in Paris, joint doctor Carol Davila, titular member and president of the Romanian Academy in the period 1913-1916. It is known that acad. Istrati was appointed by King Carol I, in 1906, 40 years after his accession to the throne, to organize the Carol I Park and the Romanian General Exhibition. On the occasion of this event (which also celebrated 25 years since the proclamation of the Kingdom of Romania, as well as 1800 years since the conquest of Dacia by the Emperor Trajan), the last major retrospective of the artist Nicolae Grigorescu, with Constantin Istrati having had a long relationship, in organized and a respectful relationship. Indeed, in 1889, Constantin Istrati had a summer home in Câmpina, where he had the artist as his neighbour, with whom he had been friends since the time when they had both lived the experience that limiting life at the front in the War. of Independence.

Dr. CI Istrati is one of the collectors of the great master’s works and a frequent visitor to the events of the time and is enlivened by Gregorian texts. The rapprochement between the two was about to happen, Grigorescu considered his supporter a “man of the heart”. Starting from these data revealed over the years by the monographs of the two personalities and by the pages of Dr.’s personal diary. CI Istrati, we would tend to believe that the artist could have assumed, at some point, the achievement and a project like the current one (painting some furniture panels is not a unique case in Nicolae Grigorescu’s creation – other situations are documented in the specialist literature, such as the doors of the deaconess Agapia). The two pieces of furniture come from the collection of a family of intellectuals, more distant descendants of Dr. Constantin Istrati. It is also said that Dr. Istrati is the one who would have helped the artist’s son to change his name from Danciu to Grigorescu (starting, most likely, from the wish expressed by the artist on his deathbed).

Divided between the four panels, the paintings that decorate the pair of cabinets represent a reinterpretation of some of the artist’s previous works. We find them reproduced in the exhibition catalogs or in monographs, some of them even taking part in the retrospective exhibition from 1906. Grouped in pairs, the protagonists of the current scenes appear as shepherds and peasant women, the leitmotif subjects of the master’s work.

All this can be admired in the current exhibition at the Artmark Galleries, this real museum in the heart of the Capital, which awaits its visitors every day (from Monday to Sunday), between 10.00 and 20.00, always with admission for free. There is also unlimited access to auction events. Anyone who has created a collector account on the Artmark Live platform can bid on Tuesday, October 1st, but anyone who is curious about the spectacle of this fascinating world of art collecting can attend the event.

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